Bombay HC reserves order in plea for seat by selected student who got no email from IIT-B

MUMBAI: Bombay high court on Monday reserved for orders a plea by a student who was denied a seat in a masters programme after he failed to pay fees on time since he never received his selection email from IIT Bombay.
A bench of chief justice Dipankar Datta and justice Girish Kulkarni said it wanted IIT to consider if it could give the student Prathamesh Pedamkar, 23, who had applied under the reserved category and was successfully selected for a teaching assistant scholarship, a seat for the same Masters in Industrial Design programme next year.
Pedamkar’s counsel Ashraf Shaikh cited a Supreme Court Judgment to say the IIT could reserve a seat for him next academic year. The HC asked him to show, as said in the apex court ruling, how the student was not at fault in missing the fee deadline of August 10.Shaikh pointed out how all along the IIT had sent updates to applicants via email and SMS and even after the final interview he gave on July 22 was informed that he would get an offer letter via email soon, which he thus waited for patiently. To IIT counsel Arsh Misra’s contention that applicants were told of the alternate mode of regularly checking the website too for admission updates, Shaikh said due to the pandemic the original schedule online was revised and not updated on the portal and that there were two portals, the IDC one which he checked. He pointed out that from August 21 to September 5 when Pedamkar asked about his selection, all that the IIT kept saying was it had sent the email on August 2--a fact that it fairly, but only post his petition admitted had never reached 19 students including Pedamkar—and never mentioned about the portal route then.
Shaikh also pointed to a RTI reply of 2008 where a seat had been added for a student and said since all IITs come under one Central Act, IITB could do it too.